Update

I’m  pleased to say that I have had some good people applying for this opportunity – sorry to say the deadline is now passed, and I’m working on the selection.  Of course, I’m always interested in new colleagues who want to work with me in this space so feel free to get in touch if you want to discuss anything further.  Thanks to all those who applied and colleagues who circulated the link.

Work with me at the University of Southampton’s School of Management

Project Title: Digital disruption and value creation

The research focuses on how small businesses in the knowledge-intensive services sector can realise value from mobile communications.  It embraces innovation theory and business strategy and will enhance competitiveness in UK plc.

Supervisor: Dr Lorraine Warren

Start Date: October 2010

Details of the Project:

The rapid development of digital technologies now presents a nexus of possibilities: widespread access to broadband/mobile technologies; smartphones enabling new forms of communication, handheld internet access and bespoke applications development; software platforms that enable a high degree of networked connectivity and communication  with the potential to amplify to (potentially) a global audience; readily available real-time geographical data; increasing availability of government datasets to the public.  This nexus produces a new locus of innovation, a shift from the corporation to the individual, recognised in new so-called paradigms for innovation, ‘open innovation’ (Chesbrough) and ‘democratic innovation’ (von Hippel) across the distributed innovation networks foreseen by Rothwell.  The barriers to digital innovation by non-computer scientists have been significantly lowered as the plethora of new businesses in the fields of social media, or smartphone applications demonstrate.  It should now easier than it has ever been to not only access and use new technologies, but to extend them, customise them, develop new combinations, and to access and develop new sectors and markets.  Thus the potential for not only incremental innovation but transformative, disruptive innovation is also possible.

However the roadmap for inductive thinking that will create value in novel and unforeseen ways in new contexts and settings is not clear.  Classical technology transfer models are too linear to translate into this milieu and are also too focussed on economic value creation at the expense of the other forms of value – social, cultural, creative, artistic and technological – that are so significant in the 21st century.

At the heart of this project is a continuation, development and extension of ongoing research on the use of complexity theory to provide an understanding of value creation in disruptive contexts because of its potential to: conceptualise across multiple, interlinked levels of analysis (ie non linear); relate initial conditions to indeterminate outcomes.  To explore the above, the project will take as its starting point the use of the iphone/smartphone as a tool for small businesses in the knowledge-intensive services sector, now that people are using mobile applications  for a wide range of tasks, from purchases, service access communication and information retrieval, bypassing traditional web access.

The Student

The project would suit a School of Management student with an MSc in a relevant qualitative discipline, or a mature student with industry experience.  In terms of future employability, the student would graduate with detailed knowledge and practical understandings that would support entry into the industry, or the development of their own business, trading consultancy skills either to companies or government agencies.

To apply for one of the above scholarships, please apply for a place on our PhD programme by following these instructions at: http://www.management.soton.ac.uk/StudyOpportunities/PhD Please email Phdteam@soton.ac.uk once you have applied stating your application number and which scholarship you are interested in.

All completed applications, which include all supporting documents and details of any funding already awarded, received by 31st July 2010 will be considered for the scholarships.  Students who already have significant sponsorship will not be awarded scholarships under this scheme.

I really enjoyed presenting at Ignite Liverpool on Thursday night – to me, this was a new format, presenting 20 slides in 5 minutes with an automatic slide change every 15 seconds.  It’s best described by WimpyKing.  I took the bullet and went first – hopefully getting over some of my passion about working with creative artists in the digital economy.  My presentation is below – I just used a few words and clipart to get the message over  quickly – or try to!

Thanks to Frances Bell for organising this event yesterday for ISOS, Salford University’s Information Systems, Organisations and Society Research Centre in the very well appointed Think Lab.  I really enjoyed the discussion afterwards, thanks to the group for some food for thought.  Presentation below:

A slightly belated post, but just before Easter I participated in the Higher Education and the Creative Economy Conference held at Southampton on 23-24 March.  I’m pleased to see that we are getting more recognition at Southampton for our vibrant institutions such as the Nuffield Theatre, the John Hansard Art Gallery and the Turner Sims Concert Hall: A fantastic set of resources all within 200 yards of each other.  My research concerns the creation of  value through emerging technologies and the creative industries have a powerful role to play in that.  The presentation is below and as usual I’m happy to take any of these ideas further, or pass on the associated publications.

Pleased to say that I’ll be working with some colleagues at Southampton on a set of four forums supported through Roberts funding over the next year, on the theme of Energising Technology Entrepreneurship.  Really, this is about pipeline development – getting some of our STEM PhDs to consider commercialising the outcomes of their research, perhaps using the excellent SetSquared incubator here at Southampton.  The forums will be based around guest speakers who have been there and done it – people who can motivate and inspire through example.  Look forward to announcing more details later.

Just a quick post to say how much I enjoyed my visit to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim this week.  Thanks to Ole Jonny Klakegg and Hans Petter Krane for making my visit so pleasant and so useful. We’re all looking forward to building an ongoing collaboration to enrich both teaching and research in many different ways in future.  As well as a number of business meetings, I was pleased to give  a short workshop on the theme of how to use social media to build academic identity online.  About 12 people attended and I’m hoping to see at least some of them online soon .

Trondheim is certainly a beautiful place, and I’m looking forward to going back, especially to a couple of very good eating places, the Fischmarkt [where they sell fish and will cook you some fresh   ], and the historic Skydsstation.

Just a quick post to note the outcomes of  a study carried out by Cambridge’s Centre for Business Research calling for changes in Government policy towards technology commercialisation/high-tech start-ups.  It points to the significance of lead customers in development and argues there has been too much emphasis on  the  university research -driven VC models.  This resonates with some outcomes from a study that I have recently carried out [soon to be published] that shows many successful firms doing quite well on a mix of consultancy and client based work, without going down the equity funding route.  The shift towards open innovation has perhaps opened up new pathways for the micro-level interactions and network building that are so significant in developing new products and services.  I look forward to some interesting studies in this area.

There has never been a better time for innovation in the Digital Economy. The barriers to disruptive innovation by non-computer scientists have been lowered by a nexus of possibilities, namely:

• Widespread access to broadband technologies
• Smartphones that enable new forms of communication, handheld internet access and bespoke applications development (Ling, 2004)
• Software platforms that enable a high degree of networked connectivity and communication, such as blogs, wikis, twitter, Facebook, ning, youtube, flickr. As well as connectivity, there is the potential for rapid-fire one-to-many and many-to-many broadcasts and interactions that have the power to amplify any interaction very quickly to a very wide, possibly global audience.
• Readily available real-time geographical location data
• Increasing availability of government datasets to the public, e.g. for e-citizenship (van Deursen and van Dijk, 2009) or for practical applications, such as data from the Ordnance Survey in the UK

It has never been easier to not only access and use technologies, but to extend them, to customise them, to develop mew combinations, to access and develop new sectors and markets. My focus in 2010 will follow on from last year’s work in the creative industries  to seek out new ways of creating value from novelty, towards new business models, new products and services.  Part of that will involve working with those who have the ability to use social media, probably connecting with people outside my existing sphere of influence, developing new activities based on real-time information and breaking news. So this time next year, I could very likely be working with people I don’t know yet on something that hasn’t happened yet — that’s what makes it so exciting!

References

van Deursen, A.J.A.M and van Dijk, J.A.G.M (2009), Improving digital skills for the use of online public information and services, Government Information Quarterly Volume 26, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 333-340

Ling, R. (2004)The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society, Morgan Kaufmann

I’ve often said when I’ve been advocating Social Media that I find it useful for connecting with industry, spotting trends, looking outside my sphere of influence and noting what’s out there on the periphery. This is useful not only for keeping my own research alive but also for keeping students abreast of where the best upcoming entrepreneurial and innovative opportunities might be. I’ve been asked to explain this further, so here’s an example. As I set out in an earlier post, I do have an affinity for ICTs – although I never worked as a systems developer, I have an MSc in Computing which means I’ve always kept up with new technologies and can at least keep up a conversation with those in the field. So it’s here where I look to for ideas as to what might come next – and I pass on my guessology to students who might be looking to set up their own businesses, or maybe hoping to impress potential employers with a bit of future-proofing. So, a couple of years ago, I would have been pointing them in the direction of i-phone apps. While my students aren’t developers either, they should be able to think about new markets, new product development, business planning, new venture creation and so on, thus aiding others with better technical skills and forming teams with mixed expertise. Where does social media come into it? Just keeping my eyes open and following some of the livelier industry analysts and developers on Twitter. Firstly there’s my mate @Jas , http://www.jasdhaliwal.com/, who in return gets to laugh at my attempts to get stuff working on my laptop. Secondly, @monkchips, James Governor, who occasionally produces quick takes on trends. Both sources are really useful – and I don’t have to understand everything – on the ‘trends’ list for example, I only really ‘get’ the first three, because they link in some way to my work on www.creatorproject.org. I don’t need comprehensive coverage, I could read an industry newspaper or feed for that, but I wouldn’t have time – so tweets are ‘good enough’ as fans of Christensen are likely to say. It doesn’t have to be ‘correct’ or come true, it just has to be interesting, possible, geared to start a dialogue or a conversation. So, that’s how it works for me!

I wasn’t able to go to the ISBE conference this year http://www.isbe.org.uk/, so it was great to see some expert live tweeting from Kelly Smith, aka @KellyJS.  To put the cherry on the cake, I saw that my paper [co-authored with Ted Fuller and Sally-Jane Norman had been selected as best in our track – another twitter first!  Anyway the slides are below – just pleased to see that the EPSRC Creator project is starting to attract attention.